I just thought I would bring up this topic again but point out that I have someone backing me up with my continuing decision to not have enemy vehicles able to be stolen. This is an interview with the developers of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6165848.html): GSUK: A while back you said you were still deciding if one side would be able to control the other's vehicles. Are you able to do that in the final version? PW: No. It ended up being too confusing to be attacked by your own team's vehicle, and it didn't really add anything to the game, so we cut out the vehicle jacking.
Considering vehicles cost money in empires and you could be relinquishing the enemy of a vital spawn point if it's an APC, I think it would add more to empires than it does to quake wars. Though I wouldn't want it to be as simple as running up to an empty vehicle and pressing use. Something engineers could be able to "turn" with the calculator or something.
If any class should do it, it should be a class that is not used against veichles right now... Like Scout or Rifleman... I don't really like the idea of fighting your own resources, but it COULD add some variety... Though to be hijact while dirving is not fun either... I think its best left out, and some more imaginative ideas take its place...
Firstly, I want to add that even if hijacking tanks and other difficult to use military equipement doesn't get in, there should definately be hijacking of vehicles. just a quick list: pros: -fun (? - two edged sword) -very irritating when you cannot use an enemy jeep you find lying around -bonus for sniping enemies that are repairing their vehicles cons: -prevents people wanting to leave their vehicle in combat (under any circumstances) -mass confusion and potentially irritation. possible methods: -(my favorite) any class can press and hold "e" on a vehicle. once the bar (45 seconds) has filled, you (and only you) have 'learned' how to use the vehicle. possibly the length of the bar could be dictated by the chassis, so jeeps take 30 seconds, LT's take a minute, MBT's take 1.5 mins and Hvy tanks take 2 minutes. OR engineer can "deconstruct" a vehicle differently by right clicking it. after 200 points have been done on this different type of deconstruction, anyone on the team can use the vehicle I personally do not think scouts or riflemen should be able to have anything 'special' about this. ----------------------- Question: should a hijacked vehicle be obvious to the enemy or not? perhaps a skill for the scout (or infact an extension of the "no radar signature for vehicles skill") could be that his hijacked vehicles do not attract the attention of enemy turrets until the player deals 200 points of damage with the vehicle. otherwise, i would by happy for hijacked vehicles to have some sort of indication, such as a big red X box over them (like when you gain lockon with vehicle homing missile). not a change of paint, because i frankly don't think that that makes a lick of sense.
I think it should be a map-specific setting, like in escort you can, but not in commander maps. It could also be possible to "hack" the vehicle to reduce it's possibilities, like slower speed or fire rate.
I want to be able to jump ontop of the vehicle and shoot the driver through the hatch (i'm thinking like with the last sequence of Saving Private Ryan)... that would be damn cool. that's a bit OT but anyway
I like the idea of this being map dependant... On commander maps; this would make it SO easy to ninja the comm, you would cry...
I would prefer no hijacking. Just put it down to the fact that BE vehicles require nanos to drive, and NF ones are protected by a genetically engineered bacteria.
I think only jeeps should be able to be hijacked. I would like to see sabotage of vehicles though, such as the points above (decreased horsepower, speed, cooling etc). Stealing all the ammoz would be cool too :p Or maybe something like a car bomb?
Ok I admit I didnt read the whole topic but has anyone thought of spraypainting the flag on the vehicles itself? So that when you hijack a BE vehicle as NF the vehicle has its spraypainted flags changed to the NF one and vice versa
In most RTS games, when a unit's control is taken, it's colored markings change to that the player that now controls it. Empires doesn't have the colored markings on the units like this. I think spraypainted flags could be a viable alternative. Just have to add more skins to the model.
I don't think vehicle hijacking would make sense in Empires. There's rarely a time a vehicle is unoccupied and when it is it's either a jeep or inside the base and that's the time you don't want some ninjaneer to sneak up and kill your base with your own tank. It's along the lines of tossable C4 for me.
changing paint schemes is the worst most atmosphere killing idea on the forums right now. PLEASE no. but... possibly a spray of the enemy flag (not home flag if non-hijacked neccessary) that obviously looks like it's been sprayed on, and is obvious. that would be ok.
What about research stealing through abandoned tanks, I remember this old RTS game I used to play a lot on LAN, Metal Fatigue. One of the things that made MF was that next to your standard RTS units you had big mechs that you could assemble and modify yourself, legs, torso, arms crew. And if any of these parts (ofcourse not the torso) would be damaged severely in combat there would be a probability that it would fall off instead of destroyed and removed from the game. Your own mechs could either pick up the body part and equip it to use it for themselves in battle, or if the enemy was another faction, you could bring the part back to your base (research facility or whatever) and research it so you could make the parts yourself during mech assembly. I would love to see something the same with tank research somehow, having the oppurtunity to steal enemy tech for your own vehicles by cleverly trapping or capturing the heavily damaged enemy vehicle.
